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let me ask you something.

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If someone records a podcast episode on
their phone and then someone else spends

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years technique, out acoustic control,

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sound

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design.

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General production and publication,
should they sound the same?

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Do they have a right to, is

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that fair?

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Because

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that's the direction we're heading in.

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Let me take a moment to let you
know about this voice region.

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you heard the clip That was the demo
video from this new tool from Waves Audio.

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Now, waves have got a
lot of respect for Waves.

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They've been in the audio software
game for many years and I know about

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them because they do a plugin for Adobe
Audition, which I've used for many years,

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along with Isotope RX tools as well.

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They're kind of competitors in the space.

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And the idea behind these tools is
that you put terrible audio into them

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and then they clean it up, and some do
it better than others, but generally

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speaking, waves is one of the good ones.

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So the idea is record your content,
click one button, upload your audio.

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Echo gone.

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Background noise.

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Gone.

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Studio quality sound comes in.

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The idea being that if you are
either strapped for cash or you don't

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want to invest in decent equipment,
you can record stuff on your phone

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or on your laptop, Mike, and it
sounds like you're in the studio,

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I've got mixed feelings about this.

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On one hand for the listener
experience, it's great.

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It's raising standards even when
people don't really wanna put any

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effort in to raising standards.

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On the other

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hand,

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that it's raising standards, even when
people don't wanna put the effort in

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to raise standards, and it's lowering
the cost of entry to sound incompetent.

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So

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it seems to me like we're not
rewarding the craft anymore.

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We're not rewarding the effort.

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We're not rewarding the learning,
the development, the mastery.

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We're rewarding someone
having access to a credit

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card.

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Now,

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look, don't get me

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wrong, there is something quite
heartwarming and noble about

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lowering barriers to entry.

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I'm

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a gatekeeper.

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I don't wanna be

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a gatekeeper.

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The only thing I gatekeeper around
is people that come in from a

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completely unrelated space, like

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hr.

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or accounting.

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And business dries up and they think,
oh, I've listened to a podcast words,

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I'm gonna become a podcast consultant.

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And that happens far more
often than you might think.

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That's where I do tend to be a
gatekeeper, because it's people's

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money and livelihoods at risk.

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I'm

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not a gatekeeper

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against one person being allowed to
enter the podcasting space over another.

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That's not fair.

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Everyone's entitled to try something.

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So there is something really good
about lowering those barriers.

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But there's something dangerous
about pretending the effort

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doesn't

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matter.

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And that's essentially
what we're saying here.

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you got the

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serious Who

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spent

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three to 500 quid

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on a mic.

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They've invested in treating their room
acoustic treatments so it sounds decent,

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and they've spent time learning sound,
how to edit what sounds good in the mix.

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you've got the lazy influencer
their iPhone stands in the kitchen.

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kitchen.

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Does zero prep.

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Doesn't need to learn editing,

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doesn't

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need to bother learning sound
design, and yet their content pops.

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So the question I would ask is this,

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If

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both outputs are valid and.

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seemingly functionally identical,

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What behavior are we incentivizing here?

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Because

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the markets tend to

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reward

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what's cheapest at scale.

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the thing

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that I think a lot of people
are gonna be overlooking with

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this

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story.

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many other stories like it.

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when a new exciting tool goes to
market and allows everyone to sound

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like they've recorded in the studio,
even if they actually recorded with

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a sock wrapped around their iPhone.

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Tools like this are not simply cleaning up

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audio.

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That's the surface

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level thing they do.

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What tools like this are doing is
they're creating a house sound.

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What I mean by that is you go
to a supermarket and you get

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the house

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wine, as

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in.

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the wine that you will see in
wine racks up and down the country

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versus.

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The wine.

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Wine that someone is proud to display
might have cost them a lot more.

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Maybe they've had to research it.

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They've got knowledge of wine, so their

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bottle

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out in the rack of house wines, and
that's what's happening with podcasting

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At the moment, really

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good.

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Podcasts do stand out still.

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what they sound like, they stand out.

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You can tell the difference in
recording quality editing, quality

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production, quality, just the
general production standards that the

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publishers have had behind the project.

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But we're creeping away from that, and
once platforms start to expect that sound.

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That becomes the standard and the norm.

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anything

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outside of that is going
to feel wrong, the wall.

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So other content won't be

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banned.

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It'll just be discouraged,
ignored, mocked.

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And that's how a medium stops evolving,
not through rules, but through defaults.

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judge in the independent podcast awards,
and every year I attend that event

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and we reward independent creators

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who may not have the best

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sounding podcasts.

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but the

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creativity and their vision
carries them towards an award.

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But what's gonna happen if people
who are spending their time

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out

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the creativity and the content
side of things, but aren't

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necessarily that invested in.

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Dampening their audio with
a one click fix is all

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tool.

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Are we now going to

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punish them because their podcast

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sounds a little bit different?

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It sounds a little bit more, I don't
know, rustic than the studio quality

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podcasts that are flooding the platforms.

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Now look, let me be
completely transparent.

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As someone

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that

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invests time and money into creating high
quality sounding studio level podcasts.

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Yeah, there's an element of, oh,

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I'm

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not

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sure I want Pretenders

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to the throne coming in

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and doing what I do in a fraction
of the time at a commoditized cost.

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Of course, there's an element of that,
but there's also an element of the art.

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getting

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lost.

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For example,

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in podcast episodes, I don't
just one click fix all the audio.

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Some of the audio I leave to
breathe let it sound as it was

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recorded, and that makes it stand

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out.

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But where

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we those moments won't stand out anymore.

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So here's the question that I can't shake.

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If technology is allowed to erase

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the difference between

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effort and laziness, what exactly
are we telling creators now and

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how long until our listeners
can't tell the difference either?

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either?

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I've been the lio, the podcast master,

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and I'd like to thank you for
taking the time to listen to my

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thoughts on this particular topic
on the show, podcasting Insights.

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if you think somebody else might find
this episode useful or interesting,

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please do share it with them.

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And if you haven't yet, please do follow
the podcast in your favorite podcast app.

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in the meantime, good luck with
your ongoing journey towards

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attaining Pod Master three.